The One With No Heart
by Clarra-Night
Summary: A one-shot of Loki and Thor being surprisingly somnolent during an Asgardian celebration.


**_Author's Notes: Apologies for the lack of a more palpable plotline… This is just a sleepy, hopefully sweet story, with a poem incorporated._**

**_Thor's POV, and in second person. This is before Loki fell from the Bifrost, before all of that happened. This is just amidst their (earlier) everyday lives. I miss that phase… so here. Hope you enjoy :) _**

**_Yeah, I know I don't really mention Odin… ever…_**

* * *

"Thor, have you seen your brother yet?"

You remembered your mother had already asked you that earlier that vibrant evening, as she pulled away from a guffawing crowd before you passed by. In the midst of the night's war-ending celebrations, your attention had been snatched to and fro amongst your friends and the merriments that he had fallen from the edges of your mind briefly.

"Loki is probably wayfaring from countless places of solitude to wait out these crowds of the revelries."

Frigga smiled, dotingly. "Ensure he has enough of those, then. It's improbable you will miss too long a portion of an Asgardian festivity, Son."

You grinned and set your chalice of wine on the closest table. As you strode by him, Fandral leaned back at you and half-hollered over the boisterous laughter and sounds of voracious feasting.

"Where are you going so soon?"

"Finding Loki. I shall return soon, Friend!"

Fandral chortled. "Your time would be more profitable just enjoying the company here! It will take longer than 'soon' to convince your brother to join. You know Loki has no heart to endure a party like this!"

"Ah, I have enough heart for both of us!" You grinned, clapping his shoulder. With that, you dutifully strode off to search for your brother.

Reading chambers, throne room, the assortments of hallways and other quarters. They were all void of him. But you were only following your usual path through the palace whenever going to check Loki's bedchambers. You realised that you established this route because of the sheer number of occasions you had half-roared, half-laughed at him to remedy something he had magicked. Or to vanish an anarchic illusion he had loosed in the building. Sometimes bellowing yourself hoarse when you thought another of his tricks had truly overstepped the boundary, and you snorted under your breath as you reached the familiar door.

Cool, dark wood with a few scuffs and signs of being hammered on with heavy fists. A silver knocker only used by others who were not you, since you never used it. It gleamed, untouched. Again ignoring it entirely, you pushed through the doorway, readying a joke about not wanting Loki to miss inflicting chaos on all the merriment.

The war-ending festivities always thrived in the more public regions of the castle and city, away from the secluded quarters. But with all the prospects of more feasting and laughter, the celebration's unruly high spirits still draped themselves around you, even as the sounds of it allayed in the distance.

The unexpected, restful stillness of Loki's room was almost tangible as you stepped inside.

The familiar setup of his bed in one corner, his bookshelves against the walls, the open arched window letting in the twilight's breath of fresh air. Unlike everywhere else that evening, it was all clothed in the quieter textures of nighttime – lamplight flickered into the corners, and sundown had almost finished re-colouring the skies outside with deeper blues. The stars looked like splintering shards of glass, woven into faraway veils between Asgard and the other realms.

Just under the window framing the heavens, you remembered how your mother had also had a desk moved there a few years ago. She had said Loki would then have a comfortable place more guaranteed of privacy to study all his books, than in the citadel reading chambers.

And at the moment, it seemed, a more private place to rest without actually going to bed. You stepped closer, feeling a smile tug at your mouth when you saw your little brother was completely asleep.

Despite that it was just his table, two chairs had always been slipped in there beside each other. In one of them, Loki was seated. One of his arms pillowed the side of his head from the hard tabletop, and his eyes were closed tiredly. His dark hair was somewhat tousled, partially hiding his expression under a layer of shadow. Also on the desk lay open one of his thick, more timeworn books, and his thin hand was stretched out to touch the thin pages.

Loki looked rather odd. In such a childlike state, yet his steely arm guards still covered his black coat sleeves, heavy-duty black boots not yet removed, and his skin still looked pale and colder than everyone else's even in the warm lighting.

But he fit there perfectly. Slightly more like he did when you were children. The warm lamplight lay gently on his cheek like a motherly hand trying to warm him up. In the room's peace, your brother's breathing was the calmest, softest sound you could hear. The pages of the opened tome before him stirred lightly in the cool breeze lifting outside, like delicate paper wings.

Your contemplation was drawn to Loki's hand lying on the book. He had fallen asleep with his fingers gripping the edges, like someone clinging to a cliff edge. He looked like he was still clinging to it, not really at rest even in his sleep…

Despite the entertainment you wanted to return to, you shifted and leaned down to try recognise the volume. Time had faded its pages, but the inked lettering was still sharp, dark, and rich with stories other than the ones they told. As your eyes journeyed over the elaborate illustrations that bordered the script, you began recalling the rhythm of the unburied poem. The one that your mother had always followed, when she used to read it to you and your brother, when sentimental rhythms like those could still be heard.

_The One With No Heart_

_High, tilting branch_

_With an opaque view,_

_As far as some eyes may see…_

Loki's expression was peaceful enough to make you acknowledge a tired weight brought by the rowdy celebrating. _Just for a moment_, you thought. Noiselessly as you could, you drew the other chair back and settled beside him.

_…And with many, many,_

_Far too many,_

_Who try to ascend_

_This Yggdrasil tree…_

The surface of the tabletop was cool and smooth beneath your palms. Your friends and mother would probably wonder later where you were. Well, at least Frigga would love the vision of her two adult sons asleep at a desk like school children, amid such a raucous event…

_…Father, Mother, Weapons, Soldiers_

_And Heroes argue above:_

_"It's too dark up here! Where's light for our way?"_

_"We need souls for that –_

_One here mustn't know_

_How truly to love"…_

You could not remember the last time you and Loki were this quiet for so long, with all the trouble you two could cause together. You both always made sure to resolve all of it together too, anyway. A somnolent half-smile tugged your lips while you drowsily skimmed the next of the verses…

_…Leaves sharpened with frost,_

_Like hate-chilled blades,_

_Turned on One in shadow._

_"But I do have a heart!"_

_"Well, we cannot hear it!_

_It must have been left frozen 'til fallow!"…_

You found yourself disregarding the imminent ribbing from Fandral about sharing Loki's lack of heart for celebration. With that air of closely holding their childhood souvenir, you did not think your brother looked so heartless…

_…"Leave us alone!_

_There's no place for you here!_

_We'll have more chance at light when you leave!"_

_But a Mother falls_

_From a tilting branch,_

_And most strongly, in silence,_

_The Heartless grieves…_

You wondered about small things as you drifted across the writing indolently. Did Loki often read this old poem from their upbringing together?

_…"Let me lead to the top,"_

_Says the One With No Heart,_

_"That Darkness will accept a Shadow."_

_"Not on your life!_

_You will try cutting us down!_

_Do you think we are so callow?"… _

Did Loki miss your mother reading to you two? Most days, there would always be a member absent from your family, busy with something else. Or someone extra, whose presence barred across those already uncommon, sheltered moments…

_…Armies march across the boughs._

_Tree branches weave in the weather._

_Darkness swarms like vengeful bees,_

_But if Light, to Shadow, hangs on,_

_They see_

_How many the masks are washed away clean,_

_As they rise against the storm together…_

* * *

Of course, you cannot pinpoint the moment you fell asleep. But the dawn was the shade of light through an incandescent blue veil when you awoke, and the cool air smelt like a new morning. Outside the window, the city below still bustled in the joviality, or the aftermaths of. It seemed unconnected, as if it were moving on beneath a glass pane while you and your little brother resided together in that isolated chamber miles above.

You saw that Loki's hand still rested on the paper. But was now really resting, all trace of unease gone, for the time. Like someone having been saved from falling from the cliff edge.

You also noticed a small, neatly folded note waiting atop the windowsill. Unlike their childhood book, the paper was thick, strong, and unweathered by time.

_Glad to see that my sons are making the most of these war-ending festivities. Rest well._

_Love,_

_Your mother_

* * *

**_Author's Notes: Thank you very, very much for reading! Don't know if you noticed, but Loki did not speak throughout the entire thing… not sure how I feel about that… _**

**_Oh, and I wrote the poem before integrating it into the story, and was unsure where to place the ending stanza. It's entitled 'The One With No Heart', and about Loki, of course – the tree branches that "weave in the weather" symbolise the Convergence of the Realms. _**

**_Anyway here is the last stanza, in case it seemed unfinished in the story: _**

**_No branches grow that cannot be scaled _**

**_By the One shining gold, _**

**_With One lighting the dark. _**

**_No leaves that grow _**

**_Can sing truer a tale. _**

**_Even if none ever know _**

**_The One With No Heart_**


End file.
